Ben Shen, PhD
Scripps Research Joint Appointments
Research Focus
Natural Product Biosynthesis, Engineering, and Drug Discovery. Microorganisms produce a large variety of biologically active substances representing a vast diversity of fascinating molecular architecture not available in any other systems. Our research centers on the chemistry, biochemistry and genetics of the biosynthesis of these secondary metabolites. Blending organic chemistry, biochemistry, and molecular biology, we take a multidisciplinary approach to study the secondary metabolism by asking the following questions: what reactions are available in nature, what are the enzymatic mechanisms of these reactions, how are these reactions linked to produce complex structures, what are the regulatory mechanisms of these pathways, and, ultimately, how can we leverage a large microbial strain collection and develop enabling genome mining and synthetic biology technologies for natural product discovery and production, and manipulate nature's biosynthetic machinery for the discovery and development of new drugs. Members of our group gain broad training spanning organic chemistry, biochemistry, microbiology and molecular biology, a qualification that is becoming essential for the modern bioorganic chemists who seek career opportunity in both academia and pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry (http://www.scripps.edu/shen/).
Natural Products Discovery Center at Scripps Research. Natural products are significantly underrepresented in current small molecule libraries. The current Natural Products Library (NPL) at Scripps Research's Natural Product Discovery Center consists of: (i) purified natural products with fully assigned structures, (b) MPLC (on C-18 semipreparative column) fractions, and (c) crude extracts. The NPL is presented in 384-well format with all materials dissolved in DMSO (1 mM for pure compounds and 50 mg/mL for fractions and extracts), compatible with most of the HTS platforms. The NPL currently available for screening includes: (a) ~600 pure natural products, (b) ~53,500 MPLC fractions, (c) ~205,000 crude extracts. The NPL provides an unprecedented molecular diversity to screen emerging targets for drug leads, and selected members of the NPL serves as outstanding small molecule probes to interrogate biology. Central to the Natural Products Discovery Center is the large microbial strain collection, containing a total of 217,352 bacterial and fungal strains, of which 62,328 are actinobacteria, 14,465 other bacteria, 92,225 fungi, and 48,334 unidentified (bacteria or fungi). Promising leads could therefore be produced in sufficient quantities by microbial fermentation for follow up studies and, ultimately, clinical development (http://www.scripps.edu/shen/NPLI/npliattsri.html).
Education
Ph.D. (Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry), Oregon State University, 1991M.S. (Chemistry), Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1984
B.S. (Chemistry), Hangzhou University, 1982
Professional Experience
2011-2017 Professor (Joint Appointment), Molecular Therapeutics, Scripps Research2005-2010 Principal Investigator, NCI UW National Cooperative Drug Discovery Group, University of Wisconsin-Madison
2004-2010 School of Pharmacy and Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison
2004-2010 Charles M. Johnson Distinguished Chair, School of Pharmacy, University of Wisconsin-Madison
2001-2003 Associate Professor, School of Pharmacy and Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison
1995-2001 Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of California, Davis
1991-1995 Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Awards & Professional Activities
1996-01, FIRST Award, NIH1997-00, Searle Scholar, Searle Scholars Program
1998-03, CAREER Award, NSF
2000, Matt Suffness Award, American Society of Pharmacognosy
2001-06, Independent Scientist Award, NIH
2002, Jack L. Beal Award, American Society of Pharmacognosy
2011, Fellow, American Academy of Microbiology
2011, Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
2015, Promega Biotechnology Research Award, American Society for Microbiology
2018, Charles Thom Award, Society of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology
2002-16, Member, Editorial Board of J. Ind. Microbiol. Biotechnol.
2003-17, Member, Editorial Advisory Board of J. Nat. Prod.
2005-17, Member, Advisory Board of Mol. BioSyst.
2006-, Associate Editor, Acta Microbiologica Sinica
2009-, Member, Editorial Board of J. Antibiot.
2011, Guest Co-Editor, J. Antibiot. January issue in memory of C. Richard Hutchinson
2012, Guest Co-Editor, Curr. Opinion Chem. Biol. April issue on Biocatalysis and Biotransformation
2017-, Editor, J. Ind. Microbiol. Biotechnol.
Selected References
276. Zhou, W.; Liang, H.; Qin, X.; Cao, D.; Zhu, X.; Ju, J.; Shen, B.; Duan, Y.; Huang, Y. (2020) The Isolation of pyrroloformamide congeners and characterization of their biosynthetic gene cluster. J. Nat. Prod. 83:202-209.
275. Kalkreuter, E.; Pan, G.; Cepeda, A. J.; Shen, B. (2020) Targeting bacterial genomes for natural product discovery: opportunities, challenges, and strategies. Trends Pharmacol. Sci. 41:13-26.
274. Steele, A. D.; Teijaro, C. N.; Yang, D.; Shen, B. (2019) Leveraging a large microbial strain collection for natural product discovery. J. Biol. Chem. 294:16567-16576.
271. Steele, A.; Kalkreuter, E.; Pan, G.; Meng, S.; Shen, B. (2019) “Hybrid Peptide-Polyketide Natural Product Biosynthesis” in Comprehensive Natural Products: Chemistry and Biology, Vol I, Elsevier, Online (https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-409547-2.14651-7).
See Shen Laboratory website for complete list of publications (https://www.scripps.edu/shen/publications.html).
See MyBibliography for complete list of publications (
Google Scholar Citations (http://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=LNnZEd4AAAAJ ).